


Quicksand

by waxpet



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 21:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6771796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waxpet/pseuds/waxpet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yugo wakes with his legs trapped under a fallen building and has no idea how he got there. He's rescued by the most unlikely of people, and definitely not one that he'd ever want to come to his rescue.</p><p>(AU from episode 92 where Yuzu doesn't arrive in time)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quicksand

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted to my tumblr (moraynepenthe.tumblr.com) may be shippy if u squint  
> i have never posted to ao3 before this is very nerve-wracking

Yugo woke with blurry vision and his legs buried under a crushing weight. He felt hands around his upper arms, trying to yank him out from whatever he was buried under, but he couldn’t see well enough to make out anything other than grey, purple, and the vague shape of a person. Regardless, he knew he didn’t want to be stuck here, so he strained forwards as much as he could to help.

He grunted when he was pulled free and the pain in his legs momentarily flared. The other person immediately moved to hoist Yugo onto their back, and Yugo cooperated as best he could. It wasn’t easy, but he ended up with his elbows over their shoulders and their hands under his thighs.

Whoever had rescued him clearly wasn’t interested in talking, because they started walking without a word. Yugo opened his mouth to complain and found his throat to be dry and sore as if he’d been shouting for hours. He leaned forwards, hoping they’d hear him if he whispered, and hissed in pain when cold, round objects on the person’s shoulders dug into his arms.

“You’re surprisingly weak for someone who wears that face.”

Yugo’s instinctive reaction to _that_ voice was to lurch away, and almost tumbled onto the ground, but his rescuer – no, his captor – had a firm grip on his legs.

“What… the hell do… you want?” His voice came out slurred and weak; Yugo’s vocal cords burnt with the effort of speaking.

His captor hummed. “Shouldn’t you be grateful? You’ve spent so long chasing after me, and now I’ve finally come back after you.”

“You don’t…” Yugo tried to wrap his arms around the bastard’s throat, but he could barely even keep his eyes open. His arms lay limply over the other’s shoulders. “You… don’t want… anything… good.”

“If that’s how you want to think of it. Is this about Rin again? I told you, there’s nothing I can do about that.”

Yugo forced himself to lift his head and get a look at his surroundings. His vision had focused enough for him to make sense of the blobs of grey around him. The grey turned out to be dilapidated buildings; they walked a narrow, winding path through a derelict city. “Heart… land…?”

There was laughter at that – high, genuine laughter, hard enough for Yugo to feel the vibrations of it in his own chest. “Don’t you recognise what you’ve made of your own city?”

Yugo’s first reaction was denial. “… No.” That didn’t make sense. Even the worst places the Commons lived in didn’t look so…. destroyed. The slums were in disrepair because nobody could pay the money to maintain and fix them. This place had been deliberately torn apart.

But when he craned his neck upwards, disregarding the warning twinge of pain it sent down his spine, he saw the City’s signature skyline of roads. Still standing in some places but snapped in most, but those were his home’s highways for sure.

Something had rampaged through the city. Something enormous and enraged. Dark, foreboding clouds were starting to clear away, but the bleak sky continued to mourn for her City.

“How…?” Yugo’s memories began to flood back to him. He remembered Starve Venom Fusion Dragon, and sudden _fury_ , and then… nothing. Whatever had happened between that duel and waking up in the ruins of his home dimension, Yugo couldn’t remember it at all. “Do you… remember…?” He didn’t expect a useful answer, or even one at all, but it wasn’t like he had anything left to lose.

“Not at all!”

“How… the hell are you… so… happy about it…?”

“I don’t like having holes in my head any more than you do. But this is exciting, isn’t it?”

“… Huh…?” This guy never made any damn sense. Yugo tried to knock his forehead into the back of the jerk’s skull, but he didn’t have enough energy and ended up disorienting himself further. “What… happened here…?”

“ _We_ happened.”

Yugo slumped against the other’s shoulders. He’d already known it in the back of his mind, but he hadn’t wanted it to be real.

“Hey, don’t do that. You’re heavy enough as it is.” Hearing that in that moment was infuriating for some reason – they’d levelled the entire City, maybe even the whole Synchro dimension, and this – this awful _bastard_ doesn’t care in the least—

“I hate you,” Yugo hissed, swallowing back the burn of tears in his throat. “I h-hate you—” He choked on a sob. “I—”

“I heard you the first time. And if you’re going to cry, don’t get it on my jacket.”

“You’re… you’re the _worst_ ,” Yugo ground out in disbelief. “How – how do you feel _nothing __about—” He tried to gesture with his hands, but mostly just flopped his wrists. “—this?”_

“Why should I? I don’t know, maybe the Professor will be pleased. This will make the invasion easier; no places for rats to hide.”

Yugo pushed down his indignation at _rats_ and focused on the question that response sparked in him. “Where… is everyone?” They’d been walking for a while now and Yugo still hadn’t seen another person.

“Gone. Cards. I… wasn’t disposed to notice at the time. That other boy with my face – the Professor’s son ran off with him already.”

“… Good,” Yugo muttered spitefully. He tried to kick his captor in the side, but his legs were just as useless as his arms. “You’re… stuck with me.”

Strangely enough, that earned him another laugh. It wasn’t malicious this time, just light. Amused. “You’re more fun than I expected.”

Yugo gathered enough strength to thump his thigh against the other’s side, and discovered that having his lower half buried under rubble for an unknown amount of time left a _lot_ of bruises. He licked his chapped lips. “What’s that… supposed to mean…?”

“Yuri.”

The non-sequitur threw Yugo off for a second. “Huh?”

“My name.”

“… Why?”

“If you were boring, I wouldn’t tell you. But I think I like you the best with that marvellous dragon of yours on the field.”

Yugo straightened up a little, ignoring the way his back ached in protest. “Then… I’ll duel you again! And I’ll beat you into the ground this time, I swear I will! For Rin, and Yuzu, and… for everyone… in the City…” Oh, he was going to cry again. Yugo sucked up a sob and buried his face in the nap of Yuri’s neck. The stiff high collar crinkled unpleasantly beneath Yugo’s skin, but he didn’t care.

The City was _gone_. Everyone he’d ever known had been taken from him. By Yuri, and by _himself_ absorbed in Clear Wing’s rage.

“Cry on me and I’ll drop you.”

Yugo glared at the back of Yuri’s head. “You don’t care about anything but yourself.” His voice was starting to come back, at least.

“Is that a bad thing?” Coming from anyone else, Yugo would have thought they were being sarcastic. Yuri sounded… almost confused.

“Yes!” Yugo cried in frustration. “The City is _demolished_ and you aren’t even blinking at it!”

“I’ve seen a demolished city before,” Yuri said in a very reasonable tone.

Yugo settled for nudging the jerk with his thigh. “That makes it _worse!_ ”

“This kind of boring behaviour is why I didn’t want to duel you. Talk about something else.”

“You can’t just— gah!” Yugo yelped when he was dropped without warning. Yuri caught him and yanked him back into position just before he hit the ground. “What the hell was that for, you asshole!?”

“I told you.” Yuri sounded irritated now. “If you’re going to be boring I’ll put you back under the building I found you in.”

Fine, Yugo wouldn’t question this guy’s complete lack of morals and/or empathy then. Whatever. “Where are you taking me?”

“I’m looking for a duel disk with a working transporter. My screen’s been smashed and if we don’t have one we’ll be stuck here.”

“Clear Wing teleports me,” Yugo blurted, and then immediately wished he hadn’t, because Yuri perked up and turned his head to stare Yugo in the eyes with keen, single-minded interest. “Does he really? Can you control it?”

“No,” Yugo replied glumly. “It just happens.”

Yuri’s focus on him vanished ridiculously fast, and any respect Yugo might have earned from him faded. He felt almost disappointed when Yuri turned away. “Oh.”

“What are you gonna do with me?” Yugo asked in an echo of his first question.

Yuri seemed to shiver in delight at that. “Oh, Yugo,” he purred. “It’s not what I’m going to do to you – it’s what we’re going to do _together_.”

“Don’t you understand?” he continued without prompting. “This city – this was _us_ , Yugo. Imagine how much more we can do…”

Yugo felt a thrill of horror and desperately tried _not_ to imagine what they could do. “Never,” he snarled. “I’ll never— I’ll never help you do _this_ —”

Yuri’s laughter evoked chills this time. “You won’t have a choice. Just like this time, no?”

A small patch of light had broken through the clouds, and the warm sunbeams felt like fire against Yugo’s clammy skin. “I hate you,” he snapped. “I hate you, Yuri!”

“That’s good,” Yuri responded cheerily. “Hate me as much as you can. That way you’ll be fired up for our duel, and we’ll wreak havoc like this dimension has never dreamed of.”

No matter what Yugo did, he could never win. He glanced back up, back around at his destroyed home world. The dim sun made it look all the worse. He contemplated his immediate future; what Yuri would do to him, make him do. Yugo was tired and his entire body hurt.

He leaned forward despite how his ribs argued against it, and set his chin on Yuri’s shoulder. “I won’t let you do this,” Yugo vowed.

Yuri laughed again – Yugo was starting to really hate that sound. “Save it for when you can at least walk on your own.”

Yugo closed his eyes and let himself give in to the throbbing ache in the back of his skull. Ironically, he was just like Rin in Yuri’s hands now; he hoped she’s okay, wherever Yuri took her.

“I hate you,” Yugo mumbled again, and the low buzz of Yuri humming under his breath certainly didn’t help him drift off to sleep. Not at all.


End file.
